Free Dark Fire by C. J. Sansom Page A

come to me for help in a property case he had taken on. A mere unqualified solicitor, he
had got hopelessly out of his depth. The case was in a dreadful tangle, and he had been fulsomely grateful for my help. He had bought me a dinner in hall, where I had listened, half-amused, as he
offered to involve me in a number of hare-brained schemes by way of thanks.
    ‘He had a falling out of some sort with Bealknap,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t been around Lincoln’s Inn a long time. Didn’t he go to work for the Court of
Augmentations?’
    Cromwell nodded. ‘He did. To help Richard Rich pull in the proceeds of the dissolution.’ He made a steeple of his fingers and looked at me over them.
    ‘Last year, when St Bartholomew’s priory in Smithfield surrendered to the king, Gristwood was sent to supervise the taking of the inventory of chattels to go to the king.’
    I nodded. The hospital priory had been a large monastic house. I recalled the prior had been in league with Cromwell and Rich, and as a reward had been granted most of the priory lands. So much
for vows of poverty. Yet they said Prior Fuller was dying, of a wasting disease God had laid on him for closing the hospital. Others said that Richard Rich, who had moved into the prior’s
fine house himself, was slowly poisoning him.
    ‘Gristwood took some Augmentations men with him,’ Cromwell continued, ‘to quantify the furniture, the plate to be melted down and so on. He took the monastery librarian to show
him what books might be worth keeping. The Augmentations men are thorough: they poke into nooks and crannies the monks themselves have often forgotten.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘And in the crypt under the church, in a cobwebby corner, they found something.’ He leaned forward, the hard dark eyes seeming to bore into mine. ‘Something that was lost to
man centuries ago, something that has become little more than a legend and a diversion for alchemists.’
    I stared at him in astonishment. I had not expected this. He laughed uneasily. ‘Sounds like a mummers’ tale, eh? Tell me, Matthew, have you ever heard of Greek Fire?’
    ‘I’m not sure.’ I frowned. ‘The name is vaguely familiar.’
    ‘I knew nothing of it myself until a few weeks ago. Greek Fire was an unknown liquid that the Byzantine emperors used in warfare against the infidel eight hundred years ago. They fired it
at enemy ships and it would set them ablaze from end to end, a rushing inextinguishable fire. It could burn even on water. The formula for its creation was kept a close secret, passed down from one
Byzantine emperor to another till in the end it was lost. The alchemists have been after it for hundreds of years but they’ve never fathomed it. Here, Grey.’ He snapped his fingers and
the clerk rose from his desk and put a piece of parchment in his master’s hands. ‘Handle it carefully, Matthew,’ Cromwell murmured. ‘It is very old.’
    I took the parchment from him. It was frayed at the edges and torn at the top. Above some words in Greek was a richly painted picture without perspective, such as the old monks used to
illustrate their books. Two oared ships of ancient design faced each other across a stretch of water. At the front of one ship a golden pipe was belching red tongues of fire, engulfing the
other.
    ‘This looks like a monkish thing,’ I said.
    He nodded. ‘So it is.’ He paused, collecting his thoughts. I glanced at Barak. His face was sober, nothing mocking in it now. Grey stood beside me, looking at the parchment, his
hands folded.
    Cromwell spoke again, quietly though there were only the three of us to hear. ‘Friend Gristwood was at St Bartholomew’s one day last autumn when he was called to the church by one of
the Augmentations clerks. Among the old lumber in the crypt they had found a large barrel, which, when they opened it, proved to be full of a thick, dark liquid with a terrible smell, like the
stench of Lucifer’s privy Gristwood said.